Mrs. Obama Inaugurates Whitney Museum
Though I’m pleased that the Whitney Museum has opened a home more spacious than its previous digs on the Upper East Side, I can’t say that I’m thrilled by the building either inside or out. But I was pleased by what First Lady Michelle Obama said in her speech yesterday at the Whitney’s inauguration of its downtown building: ‘“There are so many kids in this country who look at museums and concert halls and think to themselves: ‘That’s not a place for me,’†she said. The first lady added that as a young girl growing up on the South Side of Chicago, she felt the same way. Obama praised the museum for its commitment to reaching out to underserved communities and children through educational programming. “Every cultural institution should be doing this kind of work,†she said. “Who knows how you might expand a child’s imagination?
